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ESA Unveils Re-Entry Module
bmcage writes "The ESA unveiled the Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle, a real re-entry vehicle. Although it will not be reused, it has a better geometry than NASA's Orion or the Russian Soyuz, giving better lift, and control. This is not done by the addition of useless wings, but by using two brakes. Finally a departure from the Apollo design that is actually better?"
How much for the one you can use more than once? I would rather not have to float home, after making my first trip to hyperspace. Is there a DIY guide available? :P
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
They're planning on launching this in 2012, and it's just a test. What with delays, bureaucracy and imminent lack of funding due to the world economy, you can't expect Europe to get actual people into space until at best 2018, at which point American private companies, Russia, and China will be headed for the moon, if not already there. The Orion program seems much the same to me.
Also penguins rely on better geometry and not on useless wings!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Depresses me seeing all the big bits fall away. Fingers crossed for the descendants of SpaceShipOne to replace this throw away tech....
> it has a better geometry than NASA's Orion or the Russian Soyuz, giving better lift, and control. This is not done by the addition of useless wings, but by using two brakes.
In case you're interested: The brakes are controlled separately. One applies to the front directing cilindrical sustainer, the other to the rear main power.
The optimal braking is then executed applying the force in a 3/7 proportion, to avoid unnecessary drifting.
Further investigations are studying the possibility of changing the current power source. So the astronauts don't get so tired.
They must be air brakes.
Bmcage needs to look into what lifting bodies are -- they do not need wings.
Wings were added to the shuttle to respond to the the USAF's crossrange requirements & some of the early shuttle plans looked a lot like this.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I know it's an experimental craft, but there doesn't seem to be much room left over for a crew. It looks like the parachutes take up one third of the vehicle.
It kinda reminds me of a cross between an X-37 and an X-38. Mostly the X-38.
It doesn't seem to have enough control surfaces or reaction control devices.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
"A REAL re-entry vehicle" (that exists only on paper)? "Finally?" "Useless wings?"
Good grief, who writes this stuff anymore? I'm sure ESA's ideas are interesting and innovative, but making this out to be the savior of the manned space program is a bit facetious to say the least.
Is it not essentially a lifting body (in spite of some new ideas)? NASA pioneered this concept, which was intended to be applied to reentry vehicles at some point. The concept was most recently expressed in the X38B crew return vehicle.
Admittedly, the X38 was canceled, but due to budgetary reasons, not because it was a bad idea. And this program was well along (with real flight hardware) when canceled.
Re-entry vehicle? Getting a little far away from our core competencies are we, the ESA? Oh... we're not talking about videogames.
Interesting video, but what was up with the music? It sounded like some highschooler makinh MIDI music found the crossfade command...
Since when have wings become useless? Also looks to me like it is based very much on the Apollo program in terms of technology. Vertical lift multistage chemical rocket. Small capsule on top etc...
The real innovation in this space is coming from private companies like Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites. By doing things like using useless wings to get up to altitude before launch thus requiring less propellant. And using useless reconfigurable wings to act as air brakes etc..
What an absolutely trollish summary
looks like they are taking a step backwards to a more Gemini/lifting body approach.
i've always thought that was a better configuration, but it's hardly new.
i like it.
i think they should have taken that path with Orion.
...um...well...quite phallic. Won't all the other space-faring countries be snickering when the ESA launches it?
If your only tool is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail.
So that means it's thread safe?
I think the ESA is on the right track. A shuttle like this should be small and cheap with no real facilities except for transport. All of the scientific and life-support facilities should be on the space station. Shuttles should just transport cargo and/or crew.
I deliminate with tabs. Get used to it.
1) So does it use the same sort of heat resistant but very fragile tiles that the space shuttle uses? Is that why it has a shroud covering it during launch (adding weight and complexity)?
2) Will this be able to work at very high re-entry speeds not just from earth orbit but from lunar/mars return missions? The video (at the very end) seems to imply this. (Couldn't tell from the wind tunnel footage; shows only shock waves at Mach 1.4. And no CFD simulations!).
3) Does this thing really need a FOUR stage rocket to get it into space (and it is not even shown completing one orbit!). Has Europe never been interested in SSTO (single stage to orbit) concepts?
4) As another poster mentioned, it looks reminiscent of a lifting body. Does it actually generate lift or is the shape purely for control?
We aren't talking about making a runway approach here, so who needs all this control (besides some frustrated pilot astronaut)? No control needed to hit the Pacific or even Central Asia; just timing.
I am also concerned about the total reliance on one big honker parachute, and wonder what the vehicle's speed will be (slowed by pure air drag alone?) when that main has to deploy. I'd feel a LOT better with a wee drag chute out the back (in case of control and/or parachute failure), and at least an escape hatch with personnel chutes for the crew. Yeah, I know, more weight, more parts. But (after a career watching Army heavy drop loads come hurtling in) one chute sure worries me.
"it has a better geometry than NASA's Orion or the Russian Soyuz" - is that because the Europeans use the Riemannian geometry instead of the Euclidean or is it merely thanks to a more consistent use of the metric system?
I think the idea of being able to exit an aircraft before it incinerates, or craters, is a good idea. But I think that the Engineers have missed a major flaw in Land-To-Space design. Burt Rutan's solution allows for a more simple, graceful recovery of malfunctioning LTS Assemblies. Half the cost of an LTS project is the cost of Insurance for a second chance. By lifting parts of the project, and applying Final, and Trim Assembly in a stable earth orbit, one can reduce the overall project cost, and handle the issue of Module Replacement at lower cost levels. I know ISS was not designed for this type of mission. But an Space Assembly Yard in a parallel flight path of the ISS would give the Project Assembly Cost a smaller foot print.
I'm wondering why have a 'chute at all? Why not use a parafoil? That would allow the craft to come to a controlled landing.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Hmph, maybe it has better geometry but what about its theology?
You should also add that air launch is inherently reusable, that its cost is dramatically lower, that the carrier vehicle does not degrade in operation and could be ready for the next launch immediately, that in the event of post-detach launch failure the carrier provides observer and pursuit capability without extra air deployments, and possibly most important, that most of the dense atmospheric stresses are bypassed so everything can be lighter.
5) Does anybody here really bother to read the ESA article?
Answers:
1. http://www.esa.int/TEC/Thermal_control/SEMFZKBE8YE_0.html
Therefore it is not the same technology used for the space shuttle.
2. No. The IXV is a technology demonstrator. It is for low earth orbit.
3. Vega is a three stage rocket designed to deliver small payloads. The "fourth" stage is there to maneuver the payload around. In this special mission to position the demonstrator. http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Launchers_Access_to_Space/ASEKMU0TCNC_0.html
The Ariane 5 is closer to an SSTO concept. However SSTO is not very cost effective, because you have to lift all the mass to orbit. Moving around big empty tanks suits no purpose. Therefore it is logical to through them away whem they are no longer needed.
The space shuttle for instance throws away its solid boosters very soon after liftoff.
A SSTO concept would make sense when the whole craft is reused (like an airplane). However todays space technology based on chemical propulsion is too bulky to be cost effective in a reusable design.
4. The IXV is only shaped that way to guarantee save re-entry.
Since it's not reusable, the fragile heat resistant tiles are not a problem. The shroud is for aerodynamic control during launch, you can see in the video that the vehicle is a lifting body; have it sit exposed on top of the rocket would give you huge off-axis forces due to drag/lift.
Single stage to orbit doesn't make sense from a fuel economy point, you need a lot of big engine at the beginning, why accelerate all that mass into orbit? Ditto on reentry, you have to bleed off all that additional energy you put in, requiring lots more of those fragile heat shield tiles.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
That was the most sexually charged space video I've ever seen.
My wife wants one.
Launch costs rise fairly linear with peak power, so low takeoff mass has a direct impact on bringing costs down. While large tanks and propellants are cheap, avoiding the peak power requirements that they entail can reduce your overall air launch cost to a mere 1/10th of ground launch cost.
This is pretty clearly examined in this reference on the subject.
Its a rocket.
They are inherently phallic.
Its not like we had Borg technology or something similar so that we could make our space-vehicles squared.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
A good sound design. Lifting body design gives good cross range performance and maneuverability. I would however like a system that does use deployable wings at subsonic velocities, to enable a rolling touchdown. So much weight is used up in the shuttle by building strong hypersonic wings, that could be saved by just making wings enough for subsonic landings, and stored internally until needed. Enable crew Zero-Zero Ejection seats in case the wings fail in their deployment, giving a backup.
The first stage of an air launch vehicle does not need to carry it's own oxidizer as it can use air breathing engines, and some of the weight (lift) is carried by aerodynamics (wings) instead of pure rocket power. I don't think there are any air breathing engines (jet) with enough thrust to work in a pure vertical liftoff first stage, but if that were possible then some of the weight (oxidizer) could be saved in a re-usable first stage.
A cylinder is a much less efficient shape than a sphere (or cone).
And didn't the Russians test a lifting body like 20 years ago that was dynamically stable all of the way through re-entry?
Cute! It's really a nice looking experiment.
However, note that it's launched on a Vega. That's the new small European vehicle. The thing is tiny.
It's a test article, that's all.
Overall, it looks a lot like a revised and updated version of the cancelled Hermes spaceplane. The Hermes wings are deleted, and a parachute substituted for the final descent.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Looks a lot like Spiral without wings (or Spiral with wings folded during reentry)
SSTO only really becomes viable when you're talking about reusable vehicles operating at high flight rates, like better than once a week.
Space access will be routine when your launch vehicle can be prepped in a winter snowstorm by hung-over ground crews tired from fighting with their spouses the night before, and when they can take the abuse dished out by swarms of small-children passengers. The current clean-room-and-army-of-men-in-bunny-suits method just isn't economical. Unfortunately, it will take a massive infusion of cash to move to the more reliable method.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
Google the old NASA Dyna-Soar research vehicles of the 60's. This is nothing more than a lifting body. Computer controlled, but still nothing more than a lifting body, add wings and you would have a mini space shuttle.